Saturday, January 07, 2006
CSI: My House
I'm a fan of the TV show CSI: The Vegas one is the best of the 3. NY & Miami are both tied for a distant 2nd, although I do tend to watch them as well. But the premise of CSI has wormed its way into my head and is affecting how I keep the house. It's scary.
Today I used my fancy new KitchenAid mixer. I made a batch of cookies. I cleaned my kitchen yesterday, but it was a total wreck again when I went to make these cookies. So, I set to work cleaning as the cookies cooled. That's my life in a nutshell: cleaning. Just call me Alice.
Anyhoo, I needed to figure out where to put my sassy mixer, which started me re-working the placement of other small appliances, which got me looking under said appliances, which led to thoughts of CSI. (btw, I HATE having too much shit on my kitchen counters. I abhor clutter. As much as I love this new mixer, it bugs me to have it sit on the counter. But it must as I don't have sufficient storage tall enough to accommodate it anywhere else. Damn!) Back to CSI. In those shows there are always these teams of smart, attractive scientists who swarm all over a home, or crime scene, and start poking around. They undoubtedly make small comments about what they perceive the people who live there to be like. I get to wondering what a team of hot CSI's would think about me and my family based on what they found if they scratched the surface of my home. Actually, I don't wonder so much as shudder at the thought of what my home might reveal about me/us.
"I see a strange sort of goo here on this chair. Let me swab it." would be overheard by the guy in my dining room. Testing would likely prove it to be some crusty peanut butter and honey mixture slimed there by my daughter. The floor under the table is a petri dish all on it's own. Food drops, dog licks, crumbs accumulate, milk spills and splatters - yeah, it's real sanitary under there. Don't look too closely.
"I found a hair! Actually, lots of hairs. White and black, mostly. I'll collect them and see how they look under the scope. Maybe we can pull some DNA from them." say the pretty female CSI in the living room. Testing would show that we live in a house covered with dog hair. They would then wonder how many dogs we have and surmise it to be many. Nope, just one who sheds volumes.
"This floor is very sticky. I'll bet we can lift some shoe tread prints from here." comments the tech in the kitchen. Yeah, I don't get around to mopping much. Unless you count sliding around the floor with a Lysol wipe under each foot mopping. It works in a pinch. At least, I used to think so.... And that strange smear on the edge of the counter? Yeah, that's just from my son licking there for God-knows-what-reason. Nevermind that.
"This room back here is a wreck! A burglary maybe? Maybe the perp tossed the room looking for something valuable." calls the cute guy from the master bedroom. Sadly, he would be mistaken. Our room is just that messy.
"I noticed some interesting splatter here in the bathroom. I'll swab it and take it to trace." That would be the ever-present spraying of kids toothpaste, which happens nightly, when we try to get a 4-yr old and a 2-yr old to brush their teeth. Mayhem usually occurs and the mirror, counter and walls take the brunt of it.
This is the running commentary I had filling my brain as I was cleaning up the kitchen. It made me clean much more thoroughly in a lame attempt to be a model home for the CSI's to investigate. I could envision the looks on the actor's faces as they took a Q-tip and ran it behind the faucet of the kitchen sink and it came back with dark ooze dripping from it (I cleaned it and that's what I found - ick!). I thought of the judgements that would be made as they gazed upon the chair in my living room that my dog likes to sleep against and is usually covered in dog hair. I wondered what they would think if they analyzed the contents of my vacuum bag and saw how many leaves I have to suck up every day (how I HATE the leaves that come into this house!) and how many pounds of dog hair there must be in there. They would probably conclude I'm a nutcase who vacuums her driveway. I would much prefer comments along the lines of, "wow, this place is spotless. I'll bet it's even clean under the refridgerator!". Or, "swabbing won't help. There aren't enough germs here to tell us anything." Instead, my house could tell tales.
Happy tales, for sure, but not tales of spotlessness. No. We live here. It gets messy. I have a 4-yr old who has marginal aim when he pees and for the life of him cannot remember to flush the toilet when he drops a load. I have a husband who likes to wrap a particular Alpaca blanket around him when he watches TV, and the fucking blanket (which I find to be itchy but he thinks is so soft) sheds even worse than the damn dog. I have our microwave located in the garage to save on counter space (the door to the garage is essentially in the kitchen so it's not like it's very far away), and the door to the garage is opened frequently, which blows in leaves and other crap from the outdoors. It's all tracked into my house. My carpet, here when we bought the place, is a light champagne color. MURDER to keep clean with a family and pets. It's the bane of my existence. I do battle with that carpet - spot cleaning, vacuuming, the full steam cleaning every quarter - but I'm losing the war. The carpet always seems to have spots all over it. Our computer is in the master bedroom and the kids are always climbing on our bed and getting into everything. It's a total disaster. Not to mention we're not the best about hanging up our clothes at the end of each day.... And the toys! Dear god, the toys that scatter from one end of the house to the other! I get a workout just picking up the damn toys. Dishes pile up in the sink. I feel like I'm constantly doing dishes, and yet there are always dirty ones in the sink. It's a mystery. Maybe the CSI people could solve THAT one for me.
So CSI would be in for a shock, I'm sure, if they ever had to investigate a crime at my house. I do what I can to stay on top of it, but clearly there are areas in which I could dramatically improve. But just the thought of CSI investigators ever coming into my home has made me step up my housecleaning game a notch. I feel like I should spray the whole place down with bleach. It freaks me out to think about what they would find.
I'm determined to not let the walls do the talking. But I still won't likely be making my bed or picking up my clothes every night. There ARE limits. Let them figure it out.
Today I used my fancy new KitchenAid mixer. I made a batch of cookies. I cleaned my kitchen yesterday, but it was a total wreck again when I went to make these cookies. So, I set to work cleaning as the cookies cooled. That's my life in a nutshell: cleaning. Just call me Alice.
Anyhoo, I needed to figure out where to put my sassy mixer, which started me re-working the placement of other small appliances, which got me looking under said appliances, which led to thoughts of CSI. (btw, I HATE having too much shit on my kitchen counters. I abhor clutter. As much as I love this new mixer, it bugs me to have it sit on the counter. But it must as I don't have sufficient storage tall enough to accommodate it anywhere else. Damn!) Back to CSI. In those shows there are always these teams of smart, attractive scientists who swarm all over a home, or crime scene, and start poking around. They undoubtedly make small comments about what they perceive the people who live there to be like. I get to wondering what a team of hot CSI's would think about me and my family based on what they found if they scratched the surface of my home. Actually, I don't wonder so much as shudder at the thought of what my home might reveal about me/us.
"I see a strange sort of goo here on this chair. Let me swab it." would be overheard by the guy in my dining room. Testing would likely prove it to be some crusty peanut butter and honey mixture slimed there by my daughter. The floor under the table is a petri dish all on it's own. Food drops, dog licks, crumbs accumulate, milk spills and splatters - yeah, it's real sanitary under there. Don't look too closely.
"I found a hair! Actually, lots of hairs. White and black, mostly. I'll collect them and see how they look under the scope. Maybe we can pull some DNA from them." say the pretty female CSI in the living room. Testing would show that we live in a house covered with dog hair. They would then wonder how many dogs we have and surmise it to be many. Nope, just one who sheds volumes.
"This floor is very sticky. I'll bet we can lift some shoe tread prints from here." comments the tech in the kitchen. Yeah, I don't get around to mopping much. Unless you count sliding around the floor with a Lysol wipe under each foot mopping. It works in a pinch. At least, I used to think so.... And that strange smear on the edge of the counter? Yeah, that's just from my son licking there for God-knows-what-reason. Nevermind that.
"This room back here is a wreck! A burglary maybe? Maybe the perp tossed the room looking for something valuable." calls the cute guy from the master bedroom. Sadly, he would be mistaken. Our room is just that messy.
"I noticed some interesting splatter here in the bathroom. I'll swab it and take it to trace." That would be the ever-present spraying of kids toothpaste, which happens nightly, when we try to get a 4-yr old and a 2-yr old to brush their teeth. Mayhem usually occurs and the mirror, counter and walls take the brunt of it.
This is the running commentary I had filling my brain as I was cleaning up the kitchen. It made me clean much more thoroughly in a lame attempt to be a model home for the CSI's to investigate. I could envision the looks on the actor's faces as they took a Q-tip and ran it behind the faucet of the kitchen sink and it came back with dark ooze dripping from it (I cleaned it and that's what I found - ick!). I thought of the judgements that would be made as they gazed upon the chair in my living room that my dog likes to sleep against and is usually covered in dog hair. I wondered what they would think if they analyzed the contents of my vacuum bag and saw how many leaves I have to suck up every day (how I HATE the leaves that come into this house!) and how many pounds of dog hair there must be in there. They would probably conclude I'm a nutcase who vacuums her driveway. I would much prefer comments along the lines of, "wow, this place is spotless. I'll bet it's even clean under the refridgerator!". Or, "swabbing won't help. There aren't enough germs here to tell us anything." Instead, my house could tell tales.
Happy tales, for sure, but not tales of spotlessness. No. We live here. It gets messy. I have a 4-yr old who has marginal aim when he pees and for the life of him cannot remember to flush the toilet when he drops a load. I have a husband who likes to wrap a particular Alpaca blanket around him when he watches TV, and the fucking blanket (which I find to be itchy but he thinks is so soft) sheds even worse than the damn dog. I have our microwave located in the garage to save on counter space (the door to the garage is essentially in the kitchen so it's not like it's very far away), and the door to the garage is opened frequently, which blows in leaves and other crap from the outdoors. It's all tracked into my house. My carpet, here when we bought the place, is a light champagne color. MURDER to keep clean with a family and pets. It's the bane of my existence. I do battle with that carpet - spot cleaning, vacuuming, the full steam cleaning every quarter - but I'm losing the war. The carpet always seems to have spots all over it. Our computer is in the master bedroom and the kids are always climbing on our bed and getting into everything. It's a total disaster. Not to mention we're not the best about hanging up our clothes at the end of each day.... And the toys! Dear god, the toys that scatter from one end of the house to the other! I get a workout just picking up the damn toys. Dishes pile up in the sink. I feel like I'm constantly doing dishes, and yet there are always dirty ones in the sink. It's a mystery. Maybe the CSI people could solve THAT one for me.
So CSI would be in for a shock, I'm sure, if they ever had to investigate a crime at my house. I do what I can to stay on top of it, but clearly there are areas in which I could dramatically improve. But just the thought of CSI investigators ever coming into my home has made me step up my housecleaning game a notch. I feel like I should spray the whole place down with bleach. It freaks me out to think about what they would find.
I'm determined to not let the walls do the talking. But I still won't likely be making my bed or picking up my clothes every night. There ARE limits. Let them figure it out.
// posted by MP @ 3:29 PM 
Comments:
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omg, I can't believe you just wrote this. We are in the process of hunting jobs and preparing to move to Pensacola Florida where..........I've applied for a job as a Crime Scene Tech Trainee...I am such a CSI geek and I would love to have this job.......
Jerri Ann
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Jerri Ann
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: 8:39 AM
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